


The Winter Soldier.

by Thousandsmiles



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Gen, I'm not so epic at summaries., Nightmares, Past Brainwashing, Post CATWS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-15
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-06-08 16:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6862414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thousandsmiles/pseuds/Thousandsmiles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky post CATWS, trying to survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I originally just tried to get into Bucky's head and then it expanded into this.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Captain America or The Avengers.

There is an I when he speaks but he has long forgotten who he is. Or perhaps forgotten is not the word. He is simply just not there. He unfreezes, he does what he has to do, he goes back into cryo. There is not much thought in between that is not connected to the mission. There is annoyance perhaps if things do not go as smoothly as planned, pain if he is hurt, anger maybe if the situation demands it but otherwise, his own thoughts rarely enters his mind. And when they do, they are removed, wiped. Dread. He knows dread. He feels loss and yet still resignation when he knows he going to be wiped again. And then there is that thing that he knows is pain but is still so far from it, so much more, that he cannot fit it into the word pain. And then blankness. He reawakes, he does what he has to do, he goes back into cryo. There is not much thought in between that is not connected to the mission.

The man on bridge is the first person in a long time who has sparked a thought beyond the mission. He knew him. He knew him and he didn’t know from where. He tried to tell them. Tried to say it was important because this was the first time, at least that he could remember, that he recognized someone, that something sparked in his brain. He knew him. But they didn’t understand or they didn’t listen. They only wanted to hear about the mission. But the man was the mission. And he knew him. He knew him, in a way he rarely knew anything again. But that knowing wasn’t good. They didn’t want him to know if it jeopardized the mission. Dread and loss and resignation. He wasn’t going to know him again. The thing was going to come again and when it was gone he would complete the mission. Pain. Blankness. Reawakening. Violence. Calming. Mission. 

Something sparks in his head again on the helicarrier. He does not know why the man acts as he does and wonders if perhaps he is stupid but brushes that away. He is not stupid only held back by something that is almost undecernable to him. He keeps all other thoughts at bay in favor of finishing the mission. But when the man helps him out from under the beam, something snaps because it’s wrong. Because what he is calling him, what the man is doing, is wrong and he shouldn’t be acting like this and he, he himself shouldn’t be feeling like this. As if everything is falling apart or crowding back together. He shouldn’t be feeling this, this emotion that threatens to burst out of his chest. This, this longing. And so he pounds him, pounds the man, punches his mission in an effort to kill him, to just finish the mission in the hopes that the strange feeling would go away and things would just go back to normal after. But even that is struggling against him because he doesn’t want to lose this thing that makes his brain spark inside and make him feel alive for the first time in a very long time, even though it hurts. But he keeps punching trying to just drown out everything and then when it should have been over, the last punch, the man says something.

“I’m with you till the end of the line.”

And everything just goes into slow motion for a moment and then the feeling that was threatening to burst out of his chest actually does and he is filled with longing and home and desperation and fear and he just wants to sit somewhere and scream and scream and scream.

And he watches the man drop as the helicarrier crashes and then he is falling after him. After many harrowing moments he is swimming with the man in tow toward the shore. But he does not think anymore. He is suddenly numb inside and he keeps it that way.  There is not much thought in between that is not connected to mission. Even a mission he has chosen for himself. He completes his mission objective of dragging the man to safety at the bank and then heads on to his next objective: safety and medical care for himself. When he is in physical health once more, he will explore what happened to him then and how they are connected to the memories that he had suddenly obtained. Until then, he will remain numb.


	2. Chapter 2

He slips through people and places with barely a thought. He just goes through the motion of disguising himself, of obtaining food, of stealing a first aid kit, of avoiding the people looking for him.  He finds safety in an abandoned warehouse, and once he is sure he will not be found he opens the first aid kit in a corner and sees about the first order of business, his dislocated shoulder. He tries to push it back in place but he doesn’t have enough leverage and his body is too weak at the moment, too starved for food he hasn’t yet eaten. He isn’t strong enough to shove it in place even if he could nor has his legs the strength to brace himself if he slams it into a wall to push it back. But it has to be done now. His healing at the moment will now hurt him rather than heal him.

He takes stock of his surroundings almost mechanically and his gaze finally rests on one of the metal supports inside the warehouse. It is made up of two solid beams on either side with smaller metal bars criss-crossing between them.

He walks over to the support, grits his teeth and lifts the arm and slides it between two of the criss-crossing bars at shoulder level. He wedges his fist in a corner, tests to make sure it will stay, sets his metal arm onto his shoulder, sets his jaw in a stubborn grimace, breaths in and out a few times and then twists and pushes. With a sickening, squishy pop, the arm slid back into place. He lets out a muffled noise, and then another as his legs buckle under him and he almost drops, which causes his arm, still wedged in the support to be yanked higher than it should be lifted at the moment. He catches himself, straightens up, pulls his hand out of the support and lowers it gingerly. He rotates the shoulder a little mentally calculating how long it would take to heal, and running through what he could still use it for even damaged as it is. His limbs are just tools. They work as they are supposed to and when they don’t, he improvises with them. He’s just a tool. And until recently he worked well. He did good work. But now he doesn’t work so well. He doesn’t know what he supposed to do. He’ll just have to improvise.

He sets his mind to the next order of business. Food. He had chosen mostly semi- liquid foods as that is all he’s known for decades. All he’s ever eaten. He did not think changing it was advisable. Perhaps when he was stronger. Besides he needs liquids to rehydrate. He scarfs down the food at a set pace then lays aside the containers, gulps down two bottles of water, sets those aside as well and reaches for the open first aid kit.

He strips out of the jacket he had thrown over himself and tossed it in the corner with the hat he had also stolen. His pants had been neutral enough and he really hadn’t gotten time to get anything better. He had needed to take advantage of the panic that came with the destruction of the helicarriers. Now he painfully starts to strip out of his uniform which had been hidden by the jacket.  It was still damp and it stuck to some of his still open wounds. He hadn’t gotten more than bruises in his fight albeit some of them were terrible, but when he had jumped out of the crashing helicarrier, a number of pieces had cut him as he fell, not to mention whatever debris that had fallen after him. He swabbed out all of them, taking care with the worst of them, working with single minded intensity. His body would certainly heal on its own, but sparing it extra work when he was already so weak was only logical. He worked on them, stitching the few that needed it, and dabbing plasters on others. When he was done, he pulled back on the jacket, swallowed half the painkillers in the kit to deal with the always-there-pain from where his metal arm met his flesh, curled up in a corner and fell into a restless sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Nightmares woke him. He shot straight up screaming and then just as suddenly clamped his mouth shut so that the sound wouldn’t draw attention to him. Yet still he panicked, fighting his way through the layers of dream and disorientation back to reality. When he finally succeeded he sat on the floor of the warehouse gasping with his muscles alternately contracting and relaxing. He searched through his ragged and raw mind looking for an answer to what had just happened. Nightmares. The word surfaced from somewhere deep in his mind. He hadn’t had nightmares in years. There were no nightmares in cryo, no dreaming. There was a faint indication in his brain that this had happened before, when he had woken up for other missions but the memories were behind years and years of wiping and reconditioning. Years of pain. There were memories of nightmares before those years though. Years when he had woken up in a tent gasping and sweat soaked. He shook his head. He couldn’t deal with either of these sets of memories right now. He had had a nightmare. That was it. He lay back down and tried to go back to sleep.

Sleep was hard to come. His body needed it, required it but his mind would not quiet. It didn’t want to go to sleep and be vulnerable against itself. He needed no more pain, no more fear, yet it was fear and vulnerability which kept him awake. So fruitlessly he lay with his eyes closed and wrestled against himself. Exhaustion finally claimed him as her prisoner and sleep chained him to her will.

When he awoke hours later, it was worse than the first time he had awoken. There were no nightmares this time. There seemed to be nothing. His brain cycled through information, data, trying to establish where he was, why he was here, what was the protocol he was required to follow in this scenario. But he came up blank because something was wrong and because of that instinct, none of the protocols fit. He was frustrated and, not afraid, merely resigned to his fate if he did not perform as he should. But his brain was short-circuiting between things. Between going to Hydra and knowing that he couldn’t, between waiting for orders and knowing that no more would be coming save those from himself, between wanting to kill, to finish a mission to knowing that the mission was aborted, to remembering the man on the bridge, to remembering the man on the helicarrier, to remembering his words, to feeing like his world shattered all over again and none of the pieces fit quite right, to wanting to scream, to go back yet fighting to stay.

Numbness. It is a blessed relief when he remembers it. When it floods through him. Mission. His missions now. He had completed his first set. Next mission. He could be numb until the missions finished. The missions must not finish, not right now, perhaps not for days. He has had medical attention, food, sleep. He needs food once more and his wounds need checking on to ensure they healed properly. He can do that. They are his next missions. He sits up properly and begins them. There is not much thought in between that is not connected to the missions.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoy!

The food he has left is not enough for him so he must leave to get more. His dislocated shoulder is not 100% yet, it is hardly 50% but he has worked in worse conditions, known pain a thousand times worse. He can use his arm and it will not fail him, that is all that matters to him. He chugs down more pain killers before he goes though, and tugs the jacket and cap back on.

He knows this time will be harder, the authorities will be on high alert, and it will take all his skill to get what he needs and evade them. It is a little difficult; the streets are swarming with police officers with the army, with ex-shield agents, all on the lookout for ex-hydra agents. And him.

He’s been ghost for seventy years now though. It’s not that difficult to avoid their searching eyes, to be invisible, to slide right next to them and have them never know. The food is easy to achieve, water too. Money is a little harder because people are jumpy and they don’t care for anyone knocking into them right now. So he has to be stealthier, hands dipping into pockets without his victims ever knowing he’d touched them. It’s more difficult than he’s used to because one arm isn’t working well enough for gentle touches and while the metal arm had great sensitivity it had never achieved the same as a real flesh and blood hand, which meant both arms weren’t great at gentle.

It was frustrating and he hated to be frustrated when he was so unbalanced. He sunk deep into the blessed well of numbness and focused on his task. When he had sufficient money, he turned his attention to clothes.

He climbs through three windows before he finds an apartment which houses someone with his build and height. He pauses to steal one of their waffles to test his stomach with later and raids their medicine cabinet as well.

He pauses and then leaves some of the money behind. It’s a stupid gesture and he knows that it means he’s come out of that well of numbness but he does it anyway and tries not to remember the man on the bridge. Then he panics for about five seconds whilst he tries not to forget a thing about him. Then he is abruptly angry at himself for….he doesn’t actually know. He closes his eyes briefly and recites the parameters of his mission. Then he’s back out the window and heading down the street.

He burrows into the numb and makes it back to his warehouse.

Inside everything is untouched and he is relived because he would rather not end up in a confrontation before his body is in better shape. He will have to move soon though. He knows the search will come here before too long.

He sets down the food, strips off his clothes and exchanges them for the clothes he’d gotten from the apartment. Then he collapses onto the floor gracefully and eats as much as he needs of the semi-liquid food. In between swings of water he counts the money he has collected.

Two hundred and thirty dollars.

He folds it and puts it away neatly and drinks the rest of his bottle of water. He sorts through the medicines next and restocks his first aid kit.

Then he sets about finding places for his weapons, those he has left, within his clothing. It takes awhile to hide them all satisfactorily and he had to sew a few pockets in here and there. He thought secretly, tucking the thought where all his secret thoughts go, that sewing with a recently reset arm and a metal one was bitch. At least he didn’t have to worry about the pain when the needle poked his metal finger. A built in thimble. How cute.

But eventually he was armed to his satisfaction and then he calculated in his head how much time he had for sleep before curling up and setting his inner alarm to ring in three hours time.

Satisfied that his next set of missions had been completed, he delved into the numb to avoid the nightmares and fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This writer is a review junkie. Please, she needs her fix!


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

The waffle tasted terrible cold. It was dry too. He hadn't snatched up anything to put on it. He had brief moment of elation when he realized that he remembered that waffles usually went with something. Then he felt kind of stupid. The he decided the he wasn't going to feel stupid about it. At least his stomach could handle it. He drank some water and began packing up everything useful. He leaves the extra clothes behind.

He should get a pack next, he thinks and mentally adds it to the list. His shoulder is much, much better, thankfully, but he still downs some painkillers, although not enough to get him groggy. Once he is all set he gets up and moves cautiously away from the warehouse. He hears nothing to indicate that anyone is watching the warehouse, but it is better to be safe than sorry. He's good, but he has never made the mistake of thinking that he's the best.

He leaves the warehouse without incident though. He trugs back to the city where it's loaded with cops. There are hardly people outside, perhaps there's been a ban of some sort, perhaps people were just too scared to leave their homes right now.

It was just like after the alien attack. He'd been thoroughly pissed that he'd slept through a proper alien attack. It was even more frustrating that he hadn't been given any information about it. The only way he'd known was because the members of the hydra strike team had been talking about it. He'd finally stolen a phone and after juggling with it for a few minutes because he still wasn't comfortable with the technology, he'd managed to get details. It had passed the time on a boring stakeout.

Not that he'd remembered much about what he'd read. He'd been wiped soon after. But he'd remembered about the attack. Now was similar. It made walking about harder, especially because ex-SHIELD agents were still scattered across the city, looking for ex-hydra agents, and there were cameras everywhere and everybody was on hair trigger still.

But he managed to get on a bus, out of the city for awhile into the suburbs. He found one those junk motels and paid for a room and then inspected the bed for bugs. The germs his body could deal with, the bugs? Not so much. But the bed was surprisingly bug-free so he dropped down into it and wondered if it would be really bad if he slept right about now.

He considers the course of action critically. His body is still healing and does need the rest. Of course, he should probably bathe, because he is beginning to smell ripe and there is still blood smeared on him under his clothes. Better hygiene will improve both his physical and mental state. But he is tired in a bone deep weariness way, but he hasn't earned the rest, hasn't done enough yet.

H struggles with the problem before deciding that a small power nap would be okay. That way he'd also get enough energy to shower. He had a feeling a lot of scrubbing would be needed.

He closes his eyes and falls asleep almost immediately.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later his eyes open and he drags himself out of bed. He goes into the shower and stops himself from wrinkling his nose before remembering and then wrinkles his nose at it just because he can. Oh well, fungi hasn't been the worst thing he's shared space with before. He strips and steps into the shower. He scrubs hard in the cold water to remove any trace of blood or dirt. Then he just stands there and lets the water fall heavily on his previously dislocated shoulder, letting it soothe it. The water is close to ice cold now but that seems to help. After awhile he shifts to let the water pour down his metal arm. The water pushes away dirt and other random things caked in the grooves. He tries to help the process by using his fingernails to clear out some of the grooves but his nails are always cut short and don't do much good.

The best thing about his bathe though was washing his hair. He scrubs at his scalp and runs his fingers through his long locks, easing out bits that have matted together. Eventually he gets most of the matted bits unstuck and then wraps a towel around his waist and goes to scrub his clothes in the bathroom. After he wrings them out, and snaps them a few times. With luck they should be dry in about half an hour.

He sits on the bed and just waits, staring at nothing until his inner alarm chimes and he goes to check his clothes. After feeling them, he decides to tack on another ten minutes and resumes his thoughtless waiting on the bed.

Finally his clothes dry and he puts them back on. He looks down at them and thinks he should probably should have brought the other set of clothes. 


	6. Chapter 6

Sleep brings with it unwelcome complications. Nightmares and this time he struggles to wake up. His mouth is dry when he finally claws his way to awareness. He is breathing softly but harshly and the muscles of his neck feel like tension cords, standing so starkly out, that it hurts. He swallows, although all that manages to is make his throat hurt more due to how dry it is. He rolls off the bed smoothly and goes to get a drink of water.

After he has soothed his throat he leans onto the doorjamb and crosses an arm across his chest, props the elbow of the other arm on it and rests his head on the back of the hand. He breathes for a few moments until he calms himself down and then drops his arms and leans his head back on the door jamb.

He takes a few more breaths and then moves into the room, flicks on the lights and grabs the outdated magazine that was left on the little dresser. He flicks through it aimlessly. There is really nothing of import in the pages. When he has gone through the whole thing, he flicks the pages back and forth as harshly as he can and plays a little game with himself where he tries to see how much he can hear over the rustle of the pages.

It’s surprisingly little but that’s only because there is surprisingly little to hear. Or not so surprising. People and still a bit subdued. Judging from the pattern of human behavior, he’s pretty sure they’ll be up in arms tomorrow.

He contemplates this. Perhaps he should leave tonight, before the inevitable wave of public response begins. But it is not yet morning and while he is reasonably sure he can escape detection, it’s probably better to do it when the curfew is lifted and other people are moving around.

He is still injured and there is no need for him to make this harder that he needs to.

He looks at the clock on the nightstand and frowns at it. It’s been half an hour since he awoke but he still hasn’t calmed down enough to go back to sleep. He listens again, waiting to see if there is anything in the surroundings that is keeping him awake but there is nothing.

He narrows his eyes at himself. New mission. Sleep. He wrestles his body into submission and falls asleep.

 He wakes up when the sky lightens. People are now beginning to move around in the compound. He gets up, takes stock of his surroundings. Satisfied that no one will barge in on him during his shower, he heads to the bathroom.

His shoulder is almost better now. Cuts and bruises have healed overnight although it leaves him terribly hungry. He tries to clean off the grooves in his metal arm once more and is pleased to see that some of the stuff actually washes off this time. Maybe the previous soaking had worked them loose.

He washes his hair again. Scrubs his scalp and comes up with tiny bits of debris that hadn’t gotten washed off in the first shower. He sprays the fungi in the bathroom, feeling immensely childish while he does so and only realizes after, that he has probably just watered the thing enabling it to grow more.

When he emerges, he gathers up his things, grabs breakfast in the dining room of the place. He takes pancakes this time and some juice. He really never wants to see milk again even though he actually likes it. But milk reminded him of Pierce and Pierce reminded him of...He shut his thoughts off and takes a healthy swig of his orange juice.

It’s cold and it soothes his throat going down. He drinks all of it, tosses the cup in a nearby bin and heads out the motel, settling his cap on his head.


End file.
